Political Cues and Internet Use: Elite Communication Strategies and the Use of the Internet for Information Seeking and Political Participation.

本研究计划的中心问题涉及信息时代大众与精英之间不断变化的关系。调查探讨了通过传统大众媒体接触政治线索对在线政治参与、信息寻求和学习的程度和性质的影响。具体而言，研究人员评估了竞选广告和新闻报道中的认知启发式对公民使用的信息寻求和参与策略的影响。人们特别关注威胁线索在政治沟通中的作用，因为一项新兴的研究表明，这些线索在促进参与方面特别有效。研究人员还重新审视了近40年前基本上被抛弃的选择性接触假说，以确定接触标准的政治交流是促进还是减少了通过网络选择态度一致的信息。一项初步研究为这些假设提供了支持。被调查的潜在影响互联网搜索和行为的中心传播因素是广告语气、使用网络的动机、网络信息的可信度和各种形式的威胁线索。随着互联网发展成为一种几乎无限的信息媒介，以及访问障碍的消失，将现有态度与信息搜索策略联系起来的机制值得重新关注。研究设计建立在试点研究中采用的创新方法之上。在2000年秋天进行的这项实验中，研究人员向成年受试者展示了由媒体实验室制作的布什和戈尔候选人赞助的政治广告。在这些广告中，研究人员操纵了用来组织候选人政策立场的维度：一个版本强调党派冲突，而其他版本则强调意识形态、性格或群体代表的区别。在看完广告后，研究对象被告知，他们可以访问总统候选人的其中一个或两个网页，以了解他们感兴趣的任何其他信息。这些网页是按照候选人的实际网站设计的，并且是标准化的，这样每个网站上的信息都是相似的。研究对象在网站上的活动和在每个链接上花费的时间都被电子跟踪。这种现实而又不引人注目的搜索行为度量代表了对自我报告信息搜索的调查度量的重大改进。近年来，越来越多的学术证据和公众对公民参与、参与和对政府信任的下降趋势的担忧。与此同时，有些人预测，随着互联网迅速扩大其影响范围，政治传播的格局正在接近一个重大转变。一些人认为，这些技术进步将扭转接触的恶性循环，而另一些人则预测会出现更多的孤立和被动。到目前为止，辩论中几乎没有提到的是，互联网的政治影响至少在一定程度上取决于精英的行为。既然在互联网时代，传播策略必然会发展到最大化竞选活动的影响，研究人员必须开始探索公民如何根据他们指尖上庞大的互动媒体对这些信息作出反应。大多数观察家都会同意，随着获取信息和参与互联网的障碍不断降低，精英与大众的互动将发生重大变化。剩下的问题是怎么做。对这些现象进行严格而详细的研究不仅是必要的，而且对于理解不久的将来的公众意识和政治行为至关重要。

The central question of this research program involves the changing relationship between masses and elites in the information age. The investigation explores the impact of exposure to political cues via traditional mass media, on the extent and nature of on-line political participation, information seeking and learning. Specifically, the investigators assess the impact of cognitive heuristics in campaign advertising and news coverage on the information seeking and participatory strategies citizens employ. Particular attention is paid to the effects of threat cues in political communication, as an emerging body of research suggests that these cues are especially effective at boosting engagement. The researchers also revisit the selective exposure hypothesis that was largely abandoned nearly four decades ago, to determine if exposure to standard political communication boosts or diminishes the selection of attitudinally consistent information via the web. A pilot study provides support for these hypotheses. The central communication factors that are investigatee as potential influences on Internet searching and behavior are advertising tone, the motivation to use the web, the credibility of information on the web, and various forms of threat cues. As the Internet evolves into an almost limitless information medium, and with barriers to accessing disappearing, the mechanism linking existing attitudes to information search strategies deserves renewed attention. The research design builds upon the innovative methodology employed in a pilot study. In this experiment, conducted in the fall of 2000, adult subjects were shown political ads sponsored by candidates Bush and Gore that were constructed in the Media Lab. In these ads, the researchers manipulated the dimension used to organize the candidate's policy stands: one version emphasized partisan conflicts while others highlighted ideological, character, or group representation distinctions. After viewing the ads, subjects were told they could visit either or both of the web pages of the presidential candidates to learn any additional information that interested them. The web pages were patterned after the candidates' actual web sites and were standardized so that the information was organized similarly on each site. Subjects' movements on the websites and the time spent on each link were tracked electronically. This realistic yet unobtrusive measure of search behavior represents a significant improvement over survey measures of self-reported information seeking. In recent years, scholarly evidence for, and popular concern about, downward trends in civic engagement, participation, and trust in government have been growing. At the same time, there are those who predict that the landscape of political communication is approaching a major transformation as the Internet rapidly extends its reach. Some have argued these technological advances will reverse the downward spiral in engagement, while others predict even more isolation and passivity. Mostly absent from the debate thus far is the possibility that the political effects of the Internet will be, at least in part, contingent on the behavior of elites. Since communication strategies will certainly evolve to maximize the impact of campaigns in the age of the Internet, researchers must begin to explore how citizens react to those messages in terms of the vast interactive medium at their fmgertips. Most observers would agree that as barriers to acquiring information and participating on the Internet continue to drop, elite-mass interactions will change significantly. The question that remains is how. A rigorous and detailed study of these phenomena is not only warranted, but vital for understanding public awareness and political behavior in the near future.